100 Plein Air Painters of the Mid-Atlantic

This weekend, meet author Gary Pendleton and the artists he covers

By Sandra Olivetti Martin

We English speakers lack words for what the French call plein air painting, the Italians al fresco and Spanish speakers al aire libre.
But fresh air painters we’ve got aplenty, as Gary Pendleton’s new book 100 Plein Air Painters of the Mid-Atlantic lavishly illustrates.
You see such painters in, excuse my French, plein air competitions throughout Chesapeake Country and across the land. One hundred in one place makes for an extraordinary visual experience.
That’s the job Pendleton, of North Beach, and his publisher, Schiffer Publishing of Pennsylvania, have taken on. Pendleton picked one hundred artists from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, D.C., Delaware and New Jersey for the anthology. The president of the Mid-Atlantic Plein Air Painter Association, he is one of them. His teacher, Annapolis artist Lee Boynton, is another. Hang out at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts or local galleries and you’ll know many another: Rick Casali, John Ebersberger, Cedric and Lisa Egeli, Abigail McBride, Andree Tullier for starters. You’ll get to know them better in the biographies of each that make up the bulk of the book’s text. The three or four paintings each artist has contributed make the book a page-turner.
No picture, of course, looks so good in reproduction as in paint. This weekend, you can see pictures both ways.
All 100 painters show new paintings at McBride Gallery in Annapolis. Many of the artists, including Pendleton, come too. Prime times are Saturday, Nov. 15 from 5 to 9pm and Sunday, Nov. 16 from 1 to 4pm. The show continues through Dec. 7.